Why Bats Crash Into Windows (nature.com) 117
According to a new report published in the journal Science, Bats slam into vertical structures such as steel and glass buildings because they appear invisible to bats' echolocation system. Nature reports: Bats rely on echolocation to navigate in the dark. They locate and identify objects by sending out shrill calls and listening to the echoes that bounce back. Greif and his colleagues tested the echolocation of 21 wild-caught greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) in the lab. The researchers placed a featureless metal plate on a side wall at the end of a flight tunnel. The bats interpreted the smooth surface -- but not the adjacent, felt-covered walls -- as a clear flight path. Over an an average of around 20 trials for each bat, 19 of them crashed into the panel at least once. The researchers also put up smooth, vertical plates near wild bat colonies, and saw similar results. The animals became confused owing to a property of smooth surfaces called "acoustic mirroring." Whereas rough objects bounce some echoes back towards the bat, says Greif, a smooth surface reflects all echolocation calls away from the source. This makes a smooth wall appear as empty space to the bats, until they are directly in front of it. Only once a bat is facing the surface are their perpendicular echoes reflected back, which alerts the bat to its mistake. This explains why some bats attempted to swerve out of harm's way at the last second -- but often too late.
Because Windows is full of bugs? (Score:5, Funny)
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I find that it's flying toasters more than bats that crash in Windows.
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stealth uses this same function (Score:3, Informative)
Re: stealth uses this same function (Score:1)
Re: stealth uses this same function (Score:5, Interesting)
The tighter the curvature, the more likely some portion of the surface will be pointed towards the bat, and thus generate a return signal for them to hear.
Think of it like firing an air-cannon of tennis balls in front of you in the dark (while deaf) - if the expanding cone of tennis balls hits a smooth wall at anything other than almost dead on, all the balls will bounce away from you. On the other hand, if there's any substantial curvature to the wall then some of the balls will probably bounce back at you. When you get hit by the returning balls, you know there's something in front of you,
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I think this is just an excuse for the researchers to be dicks.
"There's a wild bat colony near my house. Let's put up some glass panels and some cameras."
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Metro also works on this principle.
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to disturb the accurate reflections of enemy radar
To expand on this a bit, the so-called "stealth bomber" uses this exact effect. All surfaces on the plane are completely flat, meaning the only reflection seen by a radar installation will be from the edge of a wing or something. In practice, the plane looks about like a flying ball bearing to radar. The bomber was first built by the US in the 80s, but it was based on research from the USSR done in the 50s.
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Are you thinking of the (now retired) stealth "fighter"? It was obviously faceted, mostly as an artifact of the computing power available when it was originally designed. The B-2 bomber, on the other hand, uses very specifically chosen curves and angles to avoid any corner reflections or edges that might reflect radar back.
In addition, there are significant quantities of radar absorbing materials used throughout (think graphite impregnated rubber, and so forth) to reduce the intensity of any reflected energ
Only in soviet Russia (Score:5, Funny)
In soviet Russia windows make bats crash. .bat make Windows crash.
In capitalist America,
Re: Only in soviet Russia (Score:1)
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.bat make Windows crash.
They should definitely open Windows.
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That also explains the "belfry" folders.
Re: That's why (Score:1)
Are bats really blind? (Score:2)
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With a smooth surface, you have the elementary law of reflection: incoming angle equals outgoing angle. That means that only the sound wave that hits the glass plane at exactly 90 degrees will be reflected back into the direction it came from. Thus only the bats flying straight to the glass window will detect it with echo-location. Any bat flying in an arbitrary angle to the plane will not hear the echo, as it is directed away from
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A brick wall has lots of different angles, and the probability is very high that at least some part of the brick wall will reflect the echo back to the source.
Assuming the mortar has been pointed properly, and so forth, a brick wall (and virtually anything else) will have a significant number of corner reflectors that will reflect ultrasonic frequencies right back to the transmitter (aka the bat). Think of it like the cat-eye reflectors on roads, or the corner reflectors left on the moon. No matter what angle you hit them with, after a double/triple bounce, it comes right back in the direction of its originator.
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Their findings were briefly explained in this documentary called "Storks": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt46... [imdb.com]
it a shity pc port! (Score:2)
https://www.pcgamesn.com/batma... [pcgamesn.com]
Obvious (Score:2)
We need to install bat-signals into our homes.
Birds also crash into large glass walls (Score:5, Funny)
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On the farm as a kid I wondered why there were all these pigeon feathers in front of the large ventilation fan in the wall of the barn. It was a very large fan, something like 3 feet across, and had very little for a protective mesh. My questions were answered one day when I opened up the barn door and startled a pigeon that got in the barn somehow. It took off for the running fan and... feathers everywhere. I realized why I never saw a dead pigeon when I saw one of the barn cats wander over to look for
But bats are endangered and we can do something (Score:3)
Many birds have gone extinct because of us and we didn't know or if we did we didn't do anything; besides, we have lots of tiny birds and losing multiple species of tiny birds because of our house cats. We don't have tons of bats and they have a different job-- a better job: eating annoying bugs.
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Many birds also eat bugs. Bats may be more effective, on an individual basis, but there are _many_ more birds in most ecosystems.
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I live in mosquito mecca. Birds do nothing for me. Imported Chinese dragonflies have made the biggest human impact against them. However, bats help greatly - we've noticed an unbelievable improvement since putting in bat houses in our yards. (The state can't put them every other house but the dragonflies helped the whole area greatly.)
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I was just thinking about house-martens and barn owls. Where did they live before humans?
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Re:Birds also crash into large glass walls (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. And the underlying physical principle is similar, except instead of sound waves in the case of bats, it is light waves in the case of birds. For example, if the sky is reflected in glass, a bird can fail to see the obstacle.
Few natural structures exhibit the kind of macroscopic reflectivity of man-made walls or glass windows. Bats and birds did not evolve sensory mechanisms to avoid collisions with these.
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I don't really understand this. Humans use light to figure out where glass is too, and we can tell. Why can't they?
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Humans run into glass doors as well. I've seen it happen numerous times.
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Humans are abnormal and understand the concept of reflections. If you want to fuck with people, create an automatic door for your lobby made out of pure glass. No non-glass pieces anywhere other than perhaps at the bottom or top of the door to secure it shut when the building is closed. Keep the window perfectly clean so that there is no surface indicators there is glass. You will have people run into it.
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True.
Evolution may well one day kill humans creating and cleaning these strange glass panes.
Is this humane? (Score:3)
Watching the video I feel bad for the bat...
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PETA
People Eating Tasty Animals? /joke
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Right tools for the job (Score:2)
that's evil (Score:3)
The researchers also put up smooth, vertical plates near wild bat colonies
The bastards!
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How is this new information ? (Score:2)
My guess is that Da Vinci could have told us the same thing, 500 years ago.
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yeah, except he didn't.
It's easy (Score:3)
start
goto crash
Save that as a
You mean (Score:2)
Outlook and Office crash on Windows.
Keep your windows dirty and save the bats! (Score:2)
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what kind of mud did you splash on your windows ?
Simple solution (Score:2)
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you don't know anything about Africa.
As a followup question (Score:2)
Why does this bat file crash Windows?
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New invention: crash resistant windows? (Score:2)
Bat-repellent window?
But the team had a brainstorm and decided to call them windows
Today's slashdot might even consider this item "newsworthy"
Re:Stupid Windows (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, crashing Windows does drive me bats.
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Thanks for bringing that up. Now I'll have to listen to Gipsies, Tramps and Thieves.
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This is why I use Linux
You do realize what OS the Bat Computer runs right?
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Let's see how many comments on this story will NOT be jokes about Microsoft Windows or Batman
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Q: Why did the bat crash into windows?
A: It saw the Blue Screen of Death
Q: Why did the bat crash into windows?
A: Because the door was closed
Q: Why did the bat crash into windows?
A: Because the Mac was more secure
Q: Why did the bat crash into windows?
A: Because it ran l33t c0d3z scr1ptz
Q: Why did the bat crash into windows?
A: Because the batman is a master technologist
Your welcome!
(thank you, i’ll be here all night)
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My welcome is stronger than your welcome!
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Just remember your windows need to be stronger than the windblows...
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WE CAN'T STOP HERE! (Score:2)
The bats are a projection from Bruce Wayne's diseased mind.
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Came here looking for Windows jokes.
Am leaving satisfied.
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If I bat a window, it surely will crash?
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Yep. And the remedy is to use Linux.
No bats crashing on Windows any more.